UKSA: Aurora Science Announcement of Opportunity

The UK Space Agency is making funding available for Aurora science. The purpose of this AO is to support science associated with planetary exploration to enhance the UK’s capabilities and cross-disciplinary approach to planetary science. The scientific objectives of the first mission in the Aurora programme, ExoMars, are to target the questions of past and present life on Mars, investigating the presence of water and the geochemical environment as well as atmospheric trace gases and their sources. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter was successfully launched in March 2016 and will reach Mars in October 2016. This will be followed by the ExoMars rover, which will carry a drill and a suite of instruments dedicated to exobiology and geochemistry research. Furthermore, the NASA InSight mission, due for launch in 2018, will investigate the interior structure and processes of Mars by placing a single geophysical lander on Mars to study its deep interior. This should help scientists to understand the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets and determine the present level of tectonic activity and meteorite impact rate on Mars.
This scheme is open to academics and individual scientists from the UK or overseas, working
at UK Research Organisations, for proposals to fund:

Fellowships to develop promising early career researchers, or allow existing
academics to discipline-hop.

Post Doctorate Research Assistants to support academics on Mars related science.

Support for academics to participate in international science teams to exploit data
from future missions, such as the NASA InSight mission or ESA PROSPECT.

Project Studentships to develop researchers to exploit data sets.

Closing date: 29th July 2016. For more information and details of the application procedure, click here.